Shepherd. A dolphin: for they hae the speed o' lichtnin. They'll dart past and roun' about a ship in full sail before the wind, just as if she was at anchor. Then the dolphin is a fish o' peace,—he saved the life o' a poet of auld, Arion, wi' his harp,—and oh! they say the cretur's beautifu' in death. Byron, ye ken, comparin' his hues to those o' the sun settin' ahint the Grecian isles. I sud like to be a dolphin.
Shepherd. Let me see—I sud hae nae great objections to be a whale in the Polar Seas. Gran' fun to fling a boatfu' o' harpooners into the air—or, wi' ae thud o' your tail, to drive in the stern posts o' a Greenlandman.
Tickler. Grander fun still, James, to feel the inextricable harpoon in your blubber, and to go snoving away beneath an ice-floe with four miles of line connecting you with your distant enemies.
Shepherd. But, then, whales marry but ae wife, and are passionately attached to their offspring. There they and I are congenial speerits. Nae fish that swims enjoys so large a share of domestic happiness.
Tickler. A whale, James, is not a fish.
Shepherd. Isna he? Let him alane for that. He's ca'd a fish in the Bible, and that's better authority than Buffon. Oh that I were a whale![285]
With these sentences, we conclude this book, as well as our selections on the whale. In the Museum at Edinburgh may be seen one of the finest, if not the most perfect, skeleton of a whale exhibited in this kingdom. Our young readers there can soon see, by examining it from the gallery, that the whale is no "fish."